As I ate Wexler's dish at Mezze, the subtleties of the mint, saffron and spices shone through. The foie's extreme fattiness provided a rich counterpoint, but its propensity to melt away allowed the other ingredients to be integral to the dish rather than mere garnishes.
I tried to think of another conduit for these particular flavors, another vehicle for the hint of mint in the syrup, the sweet tart treatment of saffron. Over fish, they'd become cloying. Any pork dish with the requisite fat to stand up to the acid and sugar would overwhelm the other ingredients — pork fat coats the tongue, making it perfect for heavy, bold accompaniments (hence the vinegar, tomato and chile of barbecue). You'd never taste half the subtleties of this dish if pork fat were involved.
There are whispers already of an underground movement, of dinners and dishes popping up, like foie speakeasies. Prohibition and its futility are mentioned frequently by chefs. The state's ban doesn't involve transporting foie across state lines — or eating it, for that matter. The only things banned are its sale and production via force-feeding of animals, and it's questionable how enforceable the law will be.
I've heard paranoid murmurs among chefs that special ban enforcers, trained to detect the flavor of foie, will roam the state's restaurants, eating mousses and handing out fines. It seems comically unlikely, even if the state weren't broke. But just imagine — what a beat for some lucky cop!
Foie police or not, for the regular diner, these dishes are going away. But it's worth remembering that it's just one ingredient.
And there may be an upside for diners, as well as ducks — chefs will be forced to look at parts of their menus in whole new ways. As Voltaggio says, "Nobody likes to be told what to do, and that's one of the biggest problems with this whole thing. But at the end of the day, it also forces creativity."
Additional reporting by Anna Escher
"But at the end of the day, it also forces creativity." That's very optimistic. Yes it forces creativity, and restaurants can be just as good without it, but it's like taking the color blue out of a painter's palette. It's a barrier. And you'll always imagine what it could have been if the artist had more to work with. It also puts California's dining scene at a huge disadvantage compared to luckier cities where the ingredient is still legal.
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